


Faded Rose

by itsafuckingdeathwish



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Like That's Literally It, M/M, Not really romantic, Self-Hatred, So much angst, Suicide, but i mean kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 08:45:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12503492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsafuckingdeathwish/pseuds/itsafuckingdeathwish
Summary: Brendon is excited about life.Ryan is anxious for death.When life and a first date don't turn out the way Brendon was hoping, and death is a disappointment for Ryan, they end up broken beyond repair.





	Faded Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Hey  
> I'm sorry  
> I don't even really know why I'm publishing this, but whatever, enjoy.  
> TW for referenced suicide and self-harm, idk is angst a tw? Well it's sad(I mean that's what I was going for, idk if that really worked out)

Brendon waited for three hours before he finally accepted that Ryan wasn't coming. Three hours of sitting in Spencer's cafe, drumming his fingers on the table. Three hours of watching people glance at him, smiling, knowing he was waiting for a date, reminiscing about their own youth. Three hours of watching their eyes turn pitying as they realized how long he'd been waiting, as they saw that his face wasn't tight with excitement, but anxiety and disappointment. Three hours of his friends who worked there coming up to him during the three different shifts, telling him, I'm sure he's coming. Maybe he thought it was tomorrow. He probably got stuck in traffic. There must have been an emergency. Don't worry, he'll show up. Three hours of coffees going cold, his once vibrant red rose wilting and drooping. 

Three hours of wondering what was wrong with him.

Three hours of dwindling hope, until finally the last ember was extinguished. 

At seven, he finally pushed back his chair, smiled weakly at Spencer, who was wiping down the espresso machine, and left the cafe, clutching the faded rose. 

After two years, he'd finally gotten up the courage to ask out the amazing guy who worked with him at the record shop, and he hadn't even shown. Stupid. Brendon stepped right into a puddle on the sidewalk and it splashed up onto his chest, but he ignored it. Now he looked as pathetic on the outside as he was on the inside. 

In a failed effort to stop thinking, he began to count his steps.

One. Desperate.

Two. Needy.

Three. Pathetic.

Four. Waste of space.

Five. Useless.

Six. Stupid.

Seven. Unlovable.

Eight. Not worth the air he was breathing.

Nine. Defective.

Ten. Eleven. He was counting faster now.

Twelve. Thirteen. Fucking worthless.

Fourteen. Fifteen. Disgusting.

Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Now he was almost running.

Twenty. Twenty one. Twenty two. Twenty three. Ugly.

Twenty four. Twenty five. Twenty six. Twenty seven. Better off dead.

Twenty eight. Twenty nine---

He reached his apartment building, merely two blocks away from Spencer's coffee shop and one block from the record store. He was breathing heavily now, but he didn't know if it was because of the exercise or his high emotions. 

He didn't even make it inside before he started crying. 

Pathetic. He was sobbing, and he didn't even know why. Sometimes when his emotions were running really high, they'd spill out from his eyes, not even only when he was sad. Right now, he had too much self hate and anger towards himself and disappointment for it all to stay contained in his body so it flowed out with the tears.

He climbed the stairs to the third floor, every step exhausting him, and practically fell through his doorway when he unlocked his door. He collapsed onto the floor, and almost didn't even bother pushing his door shut. 

That was two years of staring and wishing and hoping and daydreaming gone, just like that. From the second Ryan had stepped through the door, saying that he was the new employee and Jon said someone named Brendon would show him around, Brendon had been addicted.

Ryan was worse than nicotine, or any drug Brendon had ever tried, and that was quite a long list. Even when Ryan was right next to him, Brendon found himself craving more of him. More of his laugh, which burst out like even Ryan was surprised to hear it. More of his mysterious eyes and rare but hypnotizing smile. More of his intoxicating scent and the heady rush Brendon got whenever he heard the bell on the shop door tinkle and looked up to see Ryan walking in.

Brendon had gambled all of that, and lost. Now he'd never be able to look Ryan in the eyes ever again, or see him without that faded, wet rose appearing in the back of his mind. 

He stayed on the floor like that for what must have been hours, and was jerked from his thoughts by his phone ringing. “Help” by the Beatles poured out of the speakers, and a song that normally would've wrapped itself around his shoulders like a cozy blanket felt like dousing himself in freezing water instead as he pictured Ryan dancing to his favorite song with his eyes closed, like he was pretending that if he couldn't see anybody, then nobody could see him. He let it play for a few more seconds before he broke from his memories and held the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” he asked. He'd forgotten to look at the caller ID.

“Hey . . . Brendon. It's me,” Jon said. Jon was technically his boss, but they'd been friends long before he'd opened the record store. 

“Hey, what's up?” Brendon forced himself to sound cheerful and upbeat, not sure whether or not he should be thankful that he had so much experience faking it. 

“Umm . . . Fuck, man. I just . . . I really don't know how to tell you this. I . . . Brendon . . . Ryan----Ryan's dead.” 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sometimes it scared Ryan how much being dead was like living had been, at least for him. No one could see him, the real him, only what they wanted to see. They used to see the fake smiles, and now they saw the empty air, not him screaming inside, pounding at the glass that separated him from everyone else. Sometimes, now that he was finally dead, he felt like there was only a wisp tethering him to this world, like with a strong enough breeze, he could be blown away, while sometimes it seemed like he was still there, like he could reach out and touch someone, like they were just ignoring him instead of not seeing him because he was right there and totally solid. Before he had done it, sometimes he felt almost okay, almost normal, almost alive, and the world was drenched in color and feeling and bright, vibrant hues. He felt so happy and euphoric and there, like the world was exploding and he was at the center of it, with a front row seat. He felt overwhelmed by the kind of joy that saturates everything and doesn't leave room for any grief or fear or sadness, so that when the tidal wave had washed over you, you were left wondering why you had ever felt pain or sorrow or loss, because how could any of those things ever permeate this colorful, bright, amazing world.

But there's a flip side to everything. That euphoria would always eventually be replaced by all-encompassing sadness and then numbness. And then his life would always come crashing down. The rich colors drained away and all that was left was ashy gray covering his world. Those were the times when he was living, but he felt like he was already gone, and didn't matter to any one any more than a ghost. 

Of course he now knew that wasn't true. If anything, he mattered more now that he was dead than he had while he was breathing. He'd seen Brendon scream until his lungs gave out. Cry until no more tears came, but sobs still made his shoulders shake. Sit huddled in the corner of his living room with the lights off, hugging his knees to his chest, staring for hours at that faded rose in a glass on the table. Smash the glass so the water and his blood flooded the room, but ignore his bleeding hand to find a new cup for the flower. Nod empty nods as his friends came to comfort him, murmuring meaningless platitudes. Smile hundreds of fake smiles that were brittle as a thin sheet of glass that would shatter if anyone so much as tapped them, but no one ever did. Clutch at his chest or curl up in a ball on the bed like it physically hurt. 

Ryan knew that it really did, because he had been devoured by that pain, eating him from the inside. There were days when the pain had been so horrible that he thought being burned alive would have hurt less. But then there were the times when he couldn't feel anything at all, an empty shell. He couldn't feel the raging sorrow that usually coursed through his veins, the fiery, invisible pain, or the lines he carved into his arms. Sometimes he would spend hours carefully slicing into his body, making every mark perfect, but really he was just looking to feel it, to feel something. 

But he never did.

Not until the last time. He'd always been so cautious all the other times, never cutting too deep, because he didn't want to die before it was time, before his plan. Of course, he'd ended up failing at that too, but at least it had been on purpose. One morning, exactly one month ago, he'd woken up and immediately wished he hadn't. It wasn't like he'd never felt that before; far from it. But this time was different. He'd wanted to die for over four years, but he'd promised himself that he wouldn't do it until his twenty-first birthday. Two weeks before the final date, though, he'd woken up to such crushing sadness that he couldn't even get out of bed, or do anything but lie there and think about how worthless, stupid, ugly, pathetic he was, until he couldn't take it anymore. 

The last cut was the only one he ever felt, and he was glad that he'd at least gotten to feel pain one last time. 

Now, death was a disappointment. Ryan had been waiting for the moment when it would all be over, but this was even worse than life had been. He was still just as helpless, tidal waves of pain and loss crashing over him every day, but maybe even more so now. Some people feared oblivion, but not him. He welcomed the void, longed for that feeling to not feel at all. 

It made sense though. Life had never been fair, so why should death be any different?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Have a lovely day/night! Stay safe


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